The following books constitute an introductory reading list for beginning your professional studies in architecture. Familiarizing yourself with their contents prior to entering a professional program is one good way to enhance your general preparedness for the course of study.

  • 100 Ideas that Changed Architecture, Richard Weston 
  • Architecture: Form, Space and Order, Francis D. K. Ching
  • Architecture as Space: How to Look at Architecture, Bruno Zevi
  • Architecture in the 20th Century, Peter Gössel and Gabriele Leuthäuser
  • Becoming an Architect: A Guide to Careers in Design, Lee W. Waldrep, Ph.D.
  • Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates
  • Design of Cities, Edmund N. Bacon
  • Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, Betty Edwards
  • Guns, Germs and Steel, Jared M. Diamond
  • Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino
  • Outliers: The Story of Success, Malcolm Gladwell
  • The Earth, the Temple, and the Gods, Vincent Joseph Scully Jr.
  • Towards a New Architecture, Le Corbusier

RECOMMENDED PERIODICALS

Arbitare ArchDaily Architectural Record
Azure

Dezeen

Detail

Domus Dwell

Eco-Structure

House Interior Design  

 

RECOMMENDED MOVIES

  • Abstract: The Art of Design, a Netflix series

  • Blade Runner, Ridley Scott

  • Brazil, Terry Gilliam

  • Do You Trust This Computer?, Chris Paine

  • Inception, Christopher Nolan

  • Metropolis, Fritz Lang

  • Playtime, Jacques Tati

  • Rear Window, Alfred Hitchcock

  • The Fountainhead, King Vidor

  • The Truman Show, Peter Weir

ARCHITECTS TO FAMILIARIZE YOURSELF WITH

Frank Lloyd Wright

Rem Koolhaas (OMA)

Julia Morgan Tadao Ando
Le Corbusier Herzog & de Meuron
Louis Kahn Eileen Gray
Richard Meier TEN Arquitectos
Peter Eisenman MVRDV
Maya Lin SHoP Architects
Zaha Hadid Steven Holl
Studio Daniel Libeskind Diller Scofidio + Renfro
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe Lebbeus Woods